Coatesville.

I don’t even want to take a long time with this one, setting up with rolling hills and adventures missed by blinks of the eye. There’s nothing more important about this moment than the moment itself.

Coatesville, PA. 1:30 pm. Rolling right down the Main Line, US Rt. 30, I slowed for a red light. I waited and listened to Robin Thicke’s “When I Get You Alone,” finding nothing at all interesting in this dusty, sweaty piece-of-shit drag and feeling that broken boredom in my bones.

Then, the wildest bolt of inspiration: to my right, just as the light goes green, comes wheeling a shirtless man. His wheelchair is half-broken, and his red track pants are ripped. His right eye is DEAD FUCKING DEAD and I’m not sure of where his left eye was actually looking. He was using a foot to drag himself across the street, and that foot didn’t have much strength behind it.

Make that none. No strength in the foot, which made perfect sense because THE MAN HAD A HEROIN NEEDLE STILL STICKING OUT OF HIS ARM.

A picture’s often worth a thousand words, maybe more. And though this one might also be, I’m leaving it with change to spare, because if I force myself to write a whole lot more about this guy, I might have to kill myself.

I pulled over, got out of my truck, and within the 15 seconds it took me to do that, the guy was gone.  Nothing fits. I hate Coatesville.

Also, I alternately love Coatesville.